US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has described the violence in Ethiopia’s Tigray region as “ethnic cleansing”.
Testifying before Congress Wednesday, Blinken pressed for a probe and the exit of Eritrean troops.
“We have, as you know, forces from Eritrea over there, and we have forces from an adjoining region, Amhara, that are there,” he said.
“They need to come out and a force that will not abuse the human rights of the people of Tigray or commit acts of ethnic cleansing which we’ve seen in western Tigray. That has to stop.
“We also need full accountability; we need to get an independent investigation into what took place there”, the US Secretary of State said.
An AFP journalist recently visited the village of Dengolat where residents recounted a massacre by troops wearing military uniforms and speaking an Eritrean dialect of the Tigrinya language.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, launched a military campaign in November after blaming the region’s ruling Tigray People’s Liberation Front party, for attacks on army camps.
“I very much understand the concerns, for example, that the prime minister had about the TPLF and its actions, but the situation in Tigray today is unacceptable and has to change,” Blinken said.
“We have, as you know, forces from Eritrea over there, and we have forces from an adjoining region, Amhara, that are there. They need to come out.”
